What Amy and I Did Last Weekend

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  1. Viewed paintings in Figuratively Speaking, The Human Form in American Art — an exhibit at The Corcoran.
  2. Lunched on siopao, dimsum, and yang chow fried rice at China Doll in Chinatown.
  3. Studied Asian Games in the Sackler Gallery.
  4. Watched Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at Gallery Place. (The book was better.)
  5. Dined on unagi sushi, california rolls, and miso soup at Wok ‘N Roll Sushi Bar and Chinese Restaurant, also in Chinatown.
  6. Celebrated Pentecost and learned about motorcycle engines at First Baptist DC.
  7. Rang the Memorial Bell at the National Japanese American Memorial.
  8. Viewed Gilbert Stuart’s portraits and the work of Hans Holbein at the National Gallery.

(Yeah, lots of art.)

Maiden Middles and their Initials

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Name-hyphenation! Valerie doesn’t like it, but Amy and I plan to hyphenate our surnames. Imagine the fun people will have taking messages from the “Koslowski-Ordovezas!” Even without hyphenation, though, Filipino tradition dictates the woman keeping her maiden name as a middle name, and passing it down as a middle name to the children. Plus, I’ve known one or two husbands who adopted their own wives’ maiden names for their own middle names as a gesture of oneness. All I know is, should Amy and I marry, the “K.O.” initials are just too tempting to pass up: the baby-name acronym possibilities are endless! Valerie has a few suggestions.

More on AskMefi.

Seventh Street NW Oddities

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Chinatown

Coming out of CVS at 7th and H St NW, this strange juxtaposition of geometries leapt out at me. This area has changed a lot in the past three years, hasn’t it?

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Temple

I thought this sign was some kind of parody, but it turns out there really is a philanthropic fraternal organization called The Independent Order of Odd Fellows. As near as I can tell they’re something like the Freemasons crossed with the Rotary Club. Or something.

First Thoughts on Enterprise Finale

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Disjointed thoughts and spoilers follow.

To my annoyance, the VCR had stopped recording “These Are The Voyages” just as Riker and Troi had said “End program” and were walking out of the holodeck. Still, I had seen practically all of the episode, and I was left open-mouthed, and, as Jolene Blalock would put it, appalled.

Character development: six years later, everyone’s the same rank and duty station. Even Porthos looked exactly the same. The only thing that’s really changed besides hairstyle is a couple of extra screens on the bridge. Progress!

What a crummy way for Tucker to die: suddenly and frantically mock-snivelling to a bunch of stupid alien smugglers so he could pull off an arbitrary plan to explode a room?

And this whole episode builds up to Archer’s speech — which they don’t even show. Or was it in those final few seconds where the “Final Frontier” spiel is recited?

It was an okay Next-Generation holodeck episode, perhaps, but that was a pretty pathetic episode of Enterprise. Yuck. Never mind. I’m going to sleep. Here’s Michelle Erica Green’s review of the finale episode, but as far as I’m concerned, Terra Prime was my finale. Now that was some real Star Trek: real conflict, real sci-fi, real character development, a real climax, and no bloody holodeck.

But the Enterprise finale? It belongs right in the dung heap with Star Trek: Generations. I’d let Star Trek V into the canon before either of those pieces of junk.

More from Peter David and James Lileks.

Movabletype 3.16 login bug

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I upgraded to Movabletype 3.16, and it has an annoying bug for users who have it installed in the root directory of a domain or subdomain, as I do: it refuses to stay signed in, kicking you back to the login form between every click and every action. The problem is a few lines in lib/MT/App.pm, but the fix suggested in the MT support forum is rather cryptic. Thankfully, Wishingline.com has a mofidied App.pm ready to download.

The Horrors of National Police Week

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Hey, Washington, it’s National Police Week, and you know what that means? That’s right: off-duty cops come from around the country to party hard all weekend, then roam through downtown DC drunk as skunks, bawling, brawling, and generally making noisy, boisterous fools of themselves. Last year they were drag racing up and down North Capitol Street, setting off car alarms all over the area and keeping people in nearby hotels and apartments awake till dawn.

This archived email on a humor site describes National Police Week as “law enforcement’s version of spring break.” Only it’s not in Florida or Cancun, but in Washington, DC, centered on The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. While I respect and honor the men and women who have sacrificed their lives to “protect and serve,” that certainly doesn’t give them a free pass to act like churlish idiots in our nation’s capital.

Here’s hoping they behave better this weekend than they did last year.

Wayward Plane Sparks DC Panic

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DC had a bit of evacuation action yesterday, when a single-engine Cessna wandered into the DC no-fly zone and triggered alarms in the Capitol, House and Senate office buildings, and the White House. People were evacuated, fighter jets and helicopters were scrambled, warning flares were fired, the plane was diverted, two confused amateur pilots were detained, and the news outlets had a field day.

I IRC’d briefly with someone whose daughter was on a DC field trip to the Capitol at the time. The students were hastily cleared out along with everyone else, but apparently tour groups have to leave their cellphones, cameras, and other pocketables at a security check-in before entering the Capitol, so a lot of concerned parents were unable to get in touch with their kids when the panic started.

Meanwhile, the President was out biking in Patuxent Wildlife Research Center after arriving last night from his visit to Europe. According to this NYTimes story, “Mr. Bush’s Secret Service detail … decided not to inform him of what was unfolding.” Make of that what you will.

Up here in Dupont Circle, we were completely unaware of anything happening, and when the news started popping up, the reflexive response was, “Another false alarm.”

More links:

DCist has the roundup.

Tom Bridge was there.

DCSOB didn’t notice it either.

Pandora Yawning

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It’s actually sort of hard to photograph Pandora yawning. She’s very camera-conscious, and her yawns, though wide as any cat’s yawns, are often faster than the camera’s ability to catch the moment. I got lucky this time, though.

(Pandora Yawning uploaded by brownpau.)